Weather
Weather conditions can be changeable over the day, and mountain visitors are advised to be prepared and carry basic survival equipment. Although severe weather is unusual and generally forecast, it has claimed several lives over the years, including a party of five soldiers and one naval rating, caught in a week long storm while undergoing winter survival training in 1990. The same storm also trapped an experienced Japanese mountaineer when the weather unexpectedly closed in on him, but he built a snow cave and sheltered in it until he was rescued days later.
On 5 July 2003 about 350 skiers and 70 skifield staff were trapped on the mountain overnight at Top o'the Bruce when a sudden snow storm blew up and within a few minutes made the access road too dangerous to descend. They spent the night in relative comfort and all descended safely the next morning. Such rapidly changing conditions are typical of the weather on New Zealand mountains.
Again on Saturday 26 July 2008 skiers and staff were trapped on the mountain overnight when a fast approaching storm caused the skifield to be closed at 10:30am and made the road too dangerous for cars without chains or 4WD to leave the area. By 3pm there were still over 100 cars in the Whakapapa car park and those who had not been able to leave by that point were told to settle in for the night. All cars were able to leave safely the next morning.
Read more about this topic: Mount Ruapehu
Famous quotes containing the word weather:
“To recover a buried treasure without having it disappear miraculously in the process, one must be entitled to it, and also be willing—really willing deep in his heart—to share it with the poor and helpless. Buried money, especially silver, gives off a bright glow which comes right up through the earth and can be seen as a dim light on nights when the weather is misty or there is a gentle rain.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Wind, the season-climate mixer,
In my Witches’ Weather Primer
Says, to make this Fall Elixir
First you let the summer simmer....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men’s affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)